Rafa and Uncle Toni are currently in Chile for the Vina Del Mar tournie. He's scheduled to play dubs with Juan Monaco on 5th Feb, and his opening round singles match on 6th.

Thanks Linda. This seems to be widely known but I've checked the tournament info and there's no mention at all of Nadal, which seems a little strange. Maybe though they haven't got round to updating the website - something which is often left until the last minute.

Replaced his knees? You're saying you can be a pro tennis player on PLASTIC KNEES? I think it's unlikely.

After years of bad tennis technique, I have arthritis in my elbow. I was told I would eventually need a new elbow and that I would have 20% of the strength of a real elbow, at best.

I don't think it's his actual knees because my cousin had one replaced and yet still had some difficulty just walking for a long time afterwards. What I think could be meant is that the tendons and/or ligaments have been replaced with artificial ones - something which I understand would still enable him to play tennis, although at what level of intensity I wouldn't know.

I wonder if he has talked to Delpo at all about this. He is the best guy to ask right now about coming back after a long lay off.

He definitely would be a good person to speak to. From what I understand, he struggled a lot during his injury layoff and I'm sure Rafa's gone through similar feelings himself - it must be so frustrating for professional athletes to be prevented from doing their job by chronic injuries. It also took Delpo a full year to get his level back again, though of course with him it was worse as he lost all of his ranking points. Rafa's lucky to have all his clay points and not to have dropped further than 5 - at least he won't get any nightmare R1 draws in his first tournaments back.